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4.22.2011

the Malaysian equivalent of "eh"

Jordan, who now posts more to his Twitter than his blog, posted this comment, which went to his Facebook: "Was talking to my buddy Ron on the phone & ended a sentence with 'kan?' He's Canadian. I'm...somewhat less Canadian now, apparently."

I had no idea what he was talking about. I know that Canadians often say "eh" at the end of their sentences, like we say "You know?" or "Know what I mean?", so I assumed that "kan" had the same meaning. However, I wanted to know exactly what it meant, so a Malay friend of his explained that "kan" comes "From the word 'bukan', which means 'not'. Cantik, kan? (Beautiful, not?)."